We’re Greening the Rainbow at LA Pride

Dr. Les McCabe, Mayor Lauren Meister and Chris Classen

To celebrate LA Pride and Global Green’s unique and historic partnership to make the annual event significantly more environmentally friendly and encourage all attendees and community members to become aware of ways to live more sustainably, West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister presented LA Pride President Chris Classen and Dr. Les McCabe, President & CEO of Global Green, with a proclamation declaring June 10 to be LA Pride Global Green Day.

Due in no small part to that previous day's tragedy in Orlando, the Pride Parade’s participant numbers were slightly down from the customary crowd of about 250,000, yet there was definitely a strong level of support from within the community. This year Global Green evaluated ways to reduce the footprint of the festival and parade by up to 50% beyond previous years, the final goal being to move to a zero waste event in the future. The city’s new bikeshare bicycles implemented for zero emission commuting surrounded the attendees in West Hollywood Park.

This year Global Green curated a booth in order to assess the various forms of transportation used to arrive at the festival. “It makes a lot of sense for two of the most important and successful progressive movements to come together in the City of West Hollywood to help green LA Pride,” said Dr. McCabe. “West Hollywood and Southern California have been the birthplaces of so many important environmental and human rights policies and practices over the last few decades – from establishing landmark equal rights for LGBT communities to green building and urban design initiatives which have now become commonplace in cities around the world. By putting progressive policies for our people and planet together through LA Pride, we can further accelerate the great challenges and barriers that still remain for the LGBT and environmental movements to be successful.”

Global Green is excited to make further strides towards environmental progression in terms of the festival and parade. We find promise in the partnership to make changes in terms of human rights and the environment for the better.